POLITICS OF FERTILIZER SUPPLY TO AGRICULTURE 77


The Role of Ideas: Self-Sufficiency in Fertilizer Production There are two competing discourse coalitions on the issue of fertilizer policy. This section describes their core beliefs and the specific beliefs (see “Beliefs and Paradigms” in Chapter 3).


Core Beliefs (Paradigms)


The core beliefs or paradigms that characterize the two discourse coalitions are referred to here as market-oriented and welfare-state-oriented. Apply- ing the labels that are commonly used in the policy debate in India, these paradigms could also be referred to as neoliberal and populist, but both these labels have a negative connotation in the Indian debate. Still, in view of their wide use, it is useful to briefly consider the meaning of these terms. Neoliberalism has been described as a political and economic philosophy associated with five basic values: the individual, freedom of choice, markets, a laissez-faire outlook, and minimal government (see Belsey 1996). These values are in fact central to the “market-oriented” paradigm. Although defi- nitions of populism remain contested, the term typically refers to the view that the instruments of the state should be applied in favor of the “common people,” who are oppressed by societal elites (see Canovan 2004). Populism may be associated with right-wing as well as left-wing political ideologies, religious fundamentalism, and other worldviews. Hence, the label populist is not appropriate to describe the core belief system that is charac- terized as welfare-state-oriented here. According to this paradigm, market forces do not automatically lead to socially desirable results. Hence, in the welfare-state-oriented paradigm, the state has a responsibility to guarantee the welfare of its citizens.


Table 6.1 characterizes the main elements of the two core belief systems, or paradigms, as reflected in the interviews. As was apparent in some of the interviews, each paradigm is associated with a positive self-representation and a negative other-representation, which are also shown in Table 6.1. One has to keep in mind that the table presents stylized facts or “pure types” of the respective core beliefs.14 Individuals and groups typically hold positions that are somewhere in between, or combine elements of, the pure types described in the table. Proponents of each of these paradigms see food security as a necessary goal. However, they hold different views regarding the mechanisms that are appropriate for achieving food security: the market


14 Introduced by the German sociologist Max Weber, a “pure type” or “ideal type” (Idealtyp) is an analytical construct, in which many discrete individual attributes are arranged and synthe- sized into a single category by emphasizing one feature of those attributes. Using pure types or ideal types is a common approach in sociological analysis.


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